This invention relates to semi-automatic handguns, and addresses the national quest to create greater safety in their use, operation, and storage. More particularly, this invention replaces the slide spring with electrical motor-driven gears, and requires the user to enter a numerical code to activate the motor, thus relating to both the slide mechanism and to a coded means for securing the handgun.
The national publicity surrounding the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights and the use of handguns by unauthorized individuals has heightened public concern about firearm safety. It has also raised serious questions about gun ownership; in particular the right of individuals to possess high-capacity semi-automatic handguns. The present design of these handguns renders them inherently unsafe; they do not restrict who it can be used by, and the unloaded condition cannot be visually verified. Attempts to make the century-old semi-automatic handgun technology safer in an age of consumer protection has been limited to non-indigenous safety locks or computerized hand recognition devices that are operationally impractical.
All semi-automatic handguns work by using a mechanical spring action designed to slide a cartridge from the top of the magazine, pushing it forward and inserting it into a firing chamber comprised of the gun barrel; the open breech is sealed by the back of the slide. After firing, the cartridge shell casing is extracted rearward, by the combination of particular machining of the slide and the force of the explosion, within a fraction of a second. The slide in the full rear position cocks the spring-actuated hammer back for refiring. After this cycle of cocking is completed, the shell is ejected, and the compressed spring returns the slide forward stripping off the next cartridge for loading in the chamber. The hammer remains cocked ready for striking the firing pin when the trigger is pulled.
The cartridge magazine, which is inserted in the base of the hand-grip of the gun, is pre-loaded with cartridges for firing. It employs a spring at the cartridge magazine base to force each of the stacked cartridges upward to align in a manner that allows them to be inserted into the barrel by the forward action of the slide. When the last cartridge is fired, the spring-loaded base platform in the cartridge magazine, above which the cartridges were seated, creates a mechanically locked condition whereby the slide remains open indicating that the weapon is unloaded. After removal of the empty cartridge magazine and the insertion of a new loaded magazine, the slide, in tension by the compressed spring in the handgun is driven forward forcing a cartridge into the barrel.
All semi-automatic handguns require the squeezing of the trigger each time to fire. Industry standard provides a manual safety that locks the slide and/or the trigger. This safety is located near the trigger and can be operated by the thumb. Standard on models with exposed hammers is the ability of the user to slowly de-cock the hammer over a chambered cartridge without firing. This safety feature is of questionable value as a dropped handgun in this condition can fire.
Inherent to all semi-automatic handguns is their inability to prevent unauthorized individuals from using them without a non-indigenous locking safety device as illustrated by the Carpenter patent 6,052,934 and the McCarthy patent 5,561,935; or are of such complexity as per the Brooks patent 4,987,693 or require the complicity of a delicate electronic technology as represented by the Brentzel patent 5,915,936 and the Harling patent 5,953,844 as to make them either impractical for industry application or represent a state of art not achievable by present art.
Even with such locking devices, the loaded/unloaded condition of the handgun is not addressed. Although unauthorized use of the handgun may be prevented in theory by those inventions, the question of a single cartridge remaining in the closed slide with the cartridge magazine ejected is not addressed. Only if the slide has been locked in the open position as indicated by the external locking device of the Carpenter patent, can a visual confirmation be made that the handgun is in the inoperable, full-safe condition. As present art relies so heavily on the handgun main spring, located below the barrel to operate the slide, storage of the gun with the slide in the full open position creates a reliability problem by weakening the spring over time, and so the gun is stored with the slide closed. As such, a person looking at the gun cannot determine whether or not the gun is loaded because the slide is closed.
In view of the foregoing, the main object of this invention is to create an semi-automatic handgun that provides a visible safety confirmation and restricts the use of the handgun to authorized individuals through an integrated operating system that must be satisfied before the handgun can be fired. The incorporation of three diverse arts: the individually hand-held, rechargeable battery powered, electric-motor driven tool; a micro-processor that functions as an on-off switch linked to a digital code pad; and cyclical action of the semi-automatic handgun as per the existing art.
A battery powered electric motor, through gears located on both sides of the barrel, drives the slide forward and backward. This motor-gear combination is placed where the main handgun spring is located, replacing the function of the spring in the operating cycle. A rechargeable battery, similar to those used in hand held power tools provides the electrical source. The battery, attached to the base of the magazine, connects via wires in the hand-grip when the cartridge magazine is inserted for loading. This contact makes a circuit with the electric motor.
A micro-processor embedded within the handgun frame in front of the trigger guard functions as an electric switch for engaging the motor-battery circuit. This micro-processor switch has a memory code which is known only to the owner and the handgun manufacturer. It can be only referenced through the handgun serial number and to the authorized owner/user. Without the correct numerical digital code pressed in to the keypad located and integral with the battery power supply, a completed electrical circuit for operating the slide cannot be made, and then the handgun remains in the full safe open position. As the micro-processor switch is manufactured as internal to the handgun frame, only a is highly skilled gunsmith can effectuate its removal and replacement. This limits the use of the handgun if it is stolen or illegally purchased.
After the correct numerical code is entered into the micro-processor via the keypad, the circuit between the battery and the electric motor is completed. The gears, driven forward by the motor, close the slide over the barrel thereby chambering the first cartridge on the top of the magazine. The trigger mechanism, firing-pin, hammer cock action, and slide-breech closure are existing state of the art, as is the mechanical sear that controls semi-automatic firing; one trigger pull for a single firing. Expended shell extraction and ejection is also current art. However, the recoil spring action is handled by the reaction of the electric motor through the gears on the slide. A fine tuning of reaction forces; the electric motor-gear connection/control of the backward motion of the slide, requires a passive-aggressive action by the assembly; the motor and gears first slowing the recoil, then strongly moving the slide forward. In cases where firing has not been successful and the slide is not driven rearward by reactive forces because the chambered cartridge is defective, the internal hammer is recocked by allowing the user to re-enter the code via the keypad. This causes a pre-programed action that moves the slide back only partially, causing the hammer to be recocked. The user can pull the trigger to strike the firing pin again on the seated cartridge. When the handgun user is satisfied that firing the chambered cartridge is not possible, the slide action is moved rearward by pressing the cartridge magazine ejection button. In addition to mechanically decoupling the cartridge magazine from the hand-grip, it creates an electrical circuit that signals the motor to automatically move the slide rearward and eject the un-fired cartridge.
Upon completion of the rearward cycle of the slide action, the cartridge/shell is ejected and the hammer is re-cocked. The electric motor, through an internal switch as per existing power tool art, then reverses the direction of the slide through motor-gear action to move it forward. The motor/gear action replaces the current handgun spring, returning the slide forward. A cartridge is stripped off the top of the cartridge magazine and chambered as per existing semi-automatic handgun art. The handgun is ready to be fired; the cycle of firing, ejection, cocking and re-chambering has been completed. A manual safety lock for the trigger can be engaged for the chambered cartridge as per existing art is retained.
There are two significant advantages to this invention which are unlike any current handgun safety and user restriction:
By using an electric motor/gear action to replace the main spring action of existing art to operate the slide action that chambers and ejects the cartridge, the motor requires an electric power source to work. A switch in the form of a micro-processor allows the completion of a circuit for the electric motor/gear action to operate the slide chamber a cartridge. For this to occur, the micro-processor switch requires a code to be entered via a keypad before it will allow a circuit to be made between the battery power source and the motor. The code is preferably numeric, but can be alpha, or alphanumeric, or even symbolic (depending on the keypad chosen). The requirement of knowledge the code limits the use of the handgun. Any unauthorized individual such as a child who wants to play with it and inserts a loaded cartridge magazine correctly, cannot, without knowledge of the correct code, complete the electrical circuit whereby the slide moves forward to chamber a cartridge.
Whereas the above restricts its use to those authorized, the second safety aspect of the invention answers the question of the authorized handgun user as to the state of the chambered condition. Current art allows the semi-automatic handgun to have a chambered cartridge even when the cartridge magazine is ejected. The only way it can be ascertained with certainty and by visual means that the handgun is not loaded is when the slide is locked in an opened, rearward position. As this condition puts undue stress on the state of art main gun spring, storage in this condition is impractical for present day handguns. The present invention, through the use of an electric motor/gear driven slide, creates a visually obvious, unambivalent condition: if the hand gun is unloaded and therefore fully safe, the slide is in the full-open position; if the slide is forward and closed, an appearance similar to existing semi-automatic handguns (that may or may not have a chambered cartridge), it is loaded and can be fired.